


The Ripple Effects

by minkmix



Category: Dark Angel (TV), Supernatural
Genre: AU, cross over i know right who likes crossovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 22:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17109713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minkmix/pseuds/minkmix
Summary: This verse is pretty large. I intend to update often/weekly/when I have time until it's all up.And it goes in this order:With a Bang - https://archiveofourown.org/works/15259845/chapters/35395707 - parts 1 -15 (completed)Aftershocks - https://archiveofourown.org/works/16973790/chapters/39893430 - parts 1 - 16 (completed)Not a Whimper  - https://archiveofourown.org/works/17001399/chapters/39967239 - parts 1 - 10 (completed)Ripple Effects - HERE parts 1 -12 (completed)Minor Tremors (11 Chapters). - https://archiveofourown.org/works/18815989/chapters/44647327Minor Tremors - individual series of shorts that fit into this Bang!verse in a nonlinear way. As in they are random snapshots of life that could appear anywhere in the all of the series combined. - parts 1 - 14 (completed)(And finally into a last of the series, currently at 7 parts and  unnamed, which I have not picked up on a very long while and may or not post it here.)





	1. The Ripple Effects

**Author's Note:**

  * For [You](https://archiveofourown.org/users/You/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This verse is pretty large. I intend to update often/weekly/when I have time until it's all up.  
> And it goes in this order:
> 
> With a Bang - https://archiveofourown.org/works/15259845/chapters/35395707 - parts 1 -15 (completed)  
> Aftershocks - https://archiveofourown.org/works/16973790/chapters/39893430 - parts 1 - 16 (completed)  
> Not a Whimper - https://archiveofourown.org/works/17001399/chapters/39967239 - parts 1 - 10 (completed)  
> Ripple Effects - HERE parts 1 -12 (completed)  
> Minor Tremors (11 Chapters). - https://archiveofourown.org/works/18815989/chapters/44647327
> 
> Minor Tremors - individual series of shorts that fit into this Bang!verse in a nonlinear way. As in they are random snapshots of life that could appear anywhere in the all of the series combined. - parts 1 - 14 (completed)
> 
> (And finally into a last of the series, currently at 7 parts and unnamed, which I have not picked up on a very long while and may or not post it here.)

Alec knew he wasn’t the only person around here suffering the ill effects of the month’s events.

After the insomnia week went by and he became less and less mired in his own bullshit, he began to notice that the house had gotten pretty quiet.

With the exception of this morning.

Alec woke up alone in his dad’s bed to the sound of loud voices right outside on the front porch. There was an argument going on about Bobby packing up his car to leave. From the shouting Alec quickly gathered that Sam and Dean had been trying for some years now to get the guy to move up here with them, especially before another winter hit South Dakota. But old Bobby didn’t sound too keen on leaving behind his salvage yard and Rottweilers to come live in a guest room no matter how cozy it was.

“Alec!” Dean called from the driveway. “Get a quart of oil from out back would ya?”

Alec grabbed a few extra while he was at it, thinking of Bobby's ancient transmission and the long drive home. He couldn’t blame the old hunter for not wanting to stick around. The man didn’t seem like the grandpa type that wanted to retire on a porch and whittle shit all the live long day. Bobby seemed like the kind of guy that was going to keep hunting and straying around where he wanted until one day he just didn’t call home anymore.

And then he’d just be gone.

Anyway, before Bobby hit the road, everyone was all hugs and smiles again. Bobby even motioned Alec aside for a walk that Alec had been secretly dreading to hope for.

“You gotta minute, son?”

Alec glanced self-consciously back at Sam and Dean, grateful that they both were suddenly pretending to be preoccupied with the air in the sagging tires.

Following the old man down the dirt path that wound around the church, Alec gnawed at the inside of his lip. He liked Bobby and he really wanted Bobby to like him too. Especially after how they met and everything. He knew all this crap with Ben wasn’t really his fault, but he already felt like his mere existence was a colossal pain in the ass to anyone unfortunate enough to get within arm's reach. But the hunter didn’t seem to mind what Alec was despite knowing more details about his DNA than even Alec had ever known. It made him feel strangely at ease around him, like a doctor who knew enough about a disease not to be afraid of the patient.

“Sure is a nice day, ain’t it?” Bobby asked.

“I like it a little hotter,” Alec hadn’t gotten dressed but boxer shorts felt like too much already with the sun slanting through the trees. “By about 7 more degrees.”

“Not 8 or 6, huh?”

“Fahrenheit,” Alec added. “Not Celsius.”

“I remember hearing your mama was real fond of summer.”

Alec had never heard anyone mention anything like that about his mother. He suddenly felt happy about his mild inclination to strong heat. Like it was a secret he shared with her and no one knew but him. Well, except the person who just told him of course.

“Are you coming back soon?” Alec asked. “You should come back soon. There’s a big Anniversary party here in a few weeks with the whole town and uh, well I don’t know if you want to be here for that thing but--”

“I’ll be back this way before you know it.”

“Are we going to have Christmas and all that other stuff?” Alec felt better asking Bobby than his dad. “If-If we have those holiday things you should come back for that.”

“Sometimes I bring up a tree from my woods.”

It took a second before Alec figured out what that meant, but before he could ask why they‘d bother with a real life tree when science had given the world plastic, they had reached their destination. The stream behind the church was practically a river these days after spring, all sorts of wild flowers growing up around its banks and the sun glittering off it as it rolled under the bridge of the road.

The old hunter wiped a bandanna at the sweat on his neck and looked up and down the scatter of the small stone beach.

“Now I want you to take care of yourself,” Bobby said. “And I want you to watch out for your dad and uncle.”

“I will.” Alec answered automatically.

“You been through some times, but you’re a tough kid. Never seen tougher.”

Alec didn’t know what to say so he just kept his eyes down on the ground like he’d been taught to do when a superior was speaking. But something flashed into his lowered field of vision, dangling bright in the sunlight. Looking up, he raised his hands to hold the perfectly round green stone hanging from a thin leather cord.

“It was something I was gonna give to your daddy a long time ago, but now I think you should have it. In fact, about ten years ago I put it aside hopin‘ I‘d see you one day to hand it over.”

Slipping it on over his head, Alec immediately liked how it felt on his skin, smooth like a marble and polished to show all the gold flecks inside the swirl of its grain. “Thanks. It’ll match my eyes.”

“It’ll do more than that,“ Bobby said. “It good for angels.”

Alec made a face as he rolled it between his fingers. “Does that mean its lucky?”

“It means there’s less of a chance of you pissin’ ‘em off.”

Alec shrugged. Angels. He could buy that story like he could anything else around here. Dropping the stone on his chest, he patted it to show he understood the seriousness of it all.

“And Alec, one more thing…”

“Yes, sir?”

Bobby dug into his back pocket and pulled out a small case. The cracked leather was well cared for, oiled and polished to a nice worn shine. Alec flipped it open and found an old style and utterly obsolete military compass inside. Slightly disappointed, he turned the device over and saw initials etched in a scrawling script on the flat green paint.

J.W.

Alec’s eyes widened. “B-Bobby, I can't--”

“Sure you can. Your daddy and uncle know all about it, so there’s nothin’ to worry about. It’s something that you can use, something that helped lots of people out when they got themselves lost.”

Alec tipped the compass to watch the needle spin. “Do you think--Do you think he would have liked me?”

Bobby let out a laugh. “I think John would have liked ya a lot. Not sure you woulda liked him too much tho.”

Alec smiled and wished he had a pocket to put the compass in. But he decided he wouldn’t mind the minor humiliation of his family seeing it in his hand. He realized he was actually pretty proud. “I’m sorry,” he quickly remembered to say.

“For what?”

“I don’t have anything to give to you.”

Bobby laughed a little again. “It’s just fine, son. That’s not how this one works.“ With a big sigh, the old hunter took a look at the hill they just walked down. “Oh and Alec, do me a favor would ya?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t mention how I was gonna give that necklace to your dad okay? You know how kids get.”

“Okay.”

Following behind him, Alec considered what a guy like Bobby would like for Christmas. His gaze fell on the crumble of the lofted shed that sat way behind the house. If the man ever did want to retire, there was plenty of space out there to keep to yourself and some dogs. All it needed was some plumbing and an internet connection.

Alec listened to the hunter swear softly at the rise of the hot sun.

And maybe an air conditioner.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Alec POV. Alec's not the only one around here with PTSD._

After Bobby left Alec realized he was starting to feel a whole lot better.

He made a trip into town to fill up the empty fridge. Cleaned the various cars. When the chores ran out he started walking the meandering roads that surrounded the house for miles. All of it took his mind off something besides the murmur of the television and the sight of the same four walls.

But as he started to get out more, he noticed his father seemed to be doing a lot of the opposite.

Walking into the quiet house, he already knew exactly where to find Sam. “Hello?” Alec had started to feel like an intruder whenever he cracked the door to the dark bedroom. “You still sleepin’?”

Rolling over on the bed, Sam didn’t open his eyes. “I’m fine,” he said softly. “I’m just tired.”

Alec thought he was looking a little on the pale side.

Although his father had been technically deceased for about a week, Alec didn’t understand exactly what the current problem was. Granted the whole near-death experience thing didn’t leave a person feeling all that fantastic. Alec should know, he’d been puking up all sorts of interesting stuff for a while and he still wasn‘t exactly back to what he’d call normal. Glancing uncomfortably at the closed blinds, he wondered if his dad had gotten a look at the newly leveled cornfields yet.

“Are you thirsty?” Alec asked.

“No.”

“Hungry?”

“No.”

Alec had been getting the weird feeling that his father had been maybe holding back his exhaustion until now. Like Sam had been waiting for Alec to come around again before he let himself finally crash.

“Okay,” Alec backed out of the room. “Be right back.”

He got a plastic pitcher and filled it with ice like the medics used to do for him when he was laid up in the infirmary. Setting it down on the floor, he watched Sam curl tighter into a ball and gingerly slide his hands over his forehead.

“Are you depressed?” Alec guessed. “I read that people who are depressed sleep a lot and don’t eat anything.”

“I’m not depressed.”

“Are you sure? Because I‘ve also seen a few infomercials in my time and--”

“Yeah.”

Alec decided to finally test the waters so to speak. He hadn‘t been brave enough to try to listen in on his father‘s mind unless Sam had been sleeping and all that got him was a lot of dreams that made no sense. “This might hurt a little,” he apologized in advance. “Sorry.”

“What migh- angh...“

Alec pushed his thoughts outwards until they found Sam’s with as much grace as an elbow to the gut. And then he was suddenly inside and sharing the clutter of a headache pounding like a hot anvil in his skull. Wincing at the weight of it, Alec got a glimpse through Sam’s eyes, the pain so bad that he could barely see anything past a few feet. It was disturbing to realize that his father’s body ached all over from injuries that Alec hadn’t even known about. Down the side of his left thigh, the chest, the right hand...

“A-Alec, please. Not now…”

An unexpected image of Ben flashed over everything else. The clone was shoving the black cloth of the cassock into Sam’s hands. The image stuttered again to Ben leaning in close, the clone’s eyes burning bright and his voice low and urgent in his father’s ear--

Sam cut the connection off hard, the force of the removal sending Alec backwards a step into the doorframe.

“I said I’m fine, Alec.”

It was privacy, he vaguely understood, that was keeping Sam secluded in this room. Back in Manticore all your damage was listed and addressed. Your unit’s physicality was made your business and responsibility.

“I still don’t remember anything,” Alec tried a different tactic. “After we had that fight I started running and … I don’t remember anything after but waking up in here and puking on Dean.”

“Good,” Sam said. “That’s good.”

“I guess,” Alec said. “What do you remember?”

Sam always paused for a moment when Alec asked him that. His shoulders tensing before he gave a quick tight smile and a shake of his head. “I don’t remember anything after leaving the church.”

Alec felt a flare of impatient frustration. “Are you lying to me?”

“No,” Sam said quickly. “I’m not.”

There was another flash of Ben. It was so vivid and startling that Alec made a small sound of surprise. Ben was hidden in a ring of colored flames that dripped down from the church ceiling like jewels of a chandelier. Ben was smiling and happy but he was fading away, he was vanishing right into thin air…

“All I remember is the church,” Sam repeated. “And then I was here. Like I blinked or something.”

Alec took in the messy bed that was usually made every day by dawn. Military corners and all that crap. “I’ll get you some dinner.”

“I’m not hungry--”

“We’ve got lots of peanut butter.”

Sam sighed but he didn’t say anything else.

Heading to the kitchen, Alec was just fine with that. His dad could sigh all he wanted as long as he choked down a sandwich. But it turned out he was wrong about the peanut butter. Rattling a knife in the jar he found, he considered how nutritional a few inches of grape jelly between two slices of bread would be…

Alec was startled by a loud on the thud on the window directly in front of his face.

Blinking in confusion at the bright splatter of neon paint on the glass, Alec realized whatever it was would have struck him right between the eyes if the window hadn’t been closed. Peering around the splotch, he saw Dean standing out in the backyard with a large and magnificent looking weapon Alec couldn’t immediately identify.

He had to shove at the new window pane a few times before he could get it open.

“W-What is that thing?” Alec asked in wonder.

“Paintball gun.”

Alec ducked this time when another barrage exploded over his head and splattered festively on the wall behind him.

“That’s better,” Dean slung the gigantic electropneumatic rifle over his shoulder. “Don’t want ya getting soft out here in the country.”

“You got another one of those?”

“Yeah, you wanna get out of here before Sam starts makin’ it rain?”

He wasn’t sure if his uncle was kidding about the rain or not, but shooting shit up right now sounded awesome. Tossing the jar of jam into the sink, Alec decided dinner time could wait for when someone felt like turning on a stove. Stepping outside under the churn of the gray clouds he followed Dean’s easy smile.

But something made him pause.

Glancing back once at the house, he realized he could feel his father falling back into an uneasy sleep. Alec gently and slowly reached out again until he could see the dream starting to fill Sam’s head, concentrating hard not to startle or jolt him back into wakefulness. The sputter and blast of the church flames were already starting to roar behind Sam’s eyes like the fire in an a glowing furnace. Alec spread his thoughts thin to softly smother the heat and noise, until there was nothing there but the peaceful quiet of nothing at all.

His own heart began to calm as his father’s fell back into an even steady rhythm.

“What are you smiling about?” Dean asked.

Hefting the extra rifle, Alec shrugged.

Sometimes it felt good to get something right.

Even if it was just a shot in the dark.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Alec POV. Celebrating a holiday is hard work._

There were a lot of things to be learned from the glittering wonderland that was television.

Alec had figured out more about the world during an afternoon of reality show marathons than he had by reading any books or listening to instruction on psychology. At least he felt like he’d picked up a few things he could actually use in the field anyway. Like how to sauté rather then simmer. Don’t wear navy blue with black. Never trust a blond housemate that quotes the bible and Britney Spears at the same time.

Clicking between stations he paused when he found a nice chunk of commercials. He liked those almost as much as the designated entertainment.

_Don’t forget this weekend!_

“Sure won’t,” Alec answered. “Comes right after Friday.”

_Only three shopping days left before IT’S TOO LATE._

Alec glanced uncomfortably out the window. The sun was out and cold weather was months upon months away. Looking at his watch he confirmed that the date was still smack in the middle of a humid June.

_What are YOU going to do this weekend to show your family that you CARE?_

A procession of charcoal grills, golf bags and power tools flashed enticingly across the monitor.

Alec frowned.

_Don’t miss this special time that only comes once a year!_

He sat up in rapt attention.

_YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO WASTE ANOTHER SECOND._

“What… why?”

_Because it’s… FATHER’S DAY!_

“Crap,” Alec slumped back on the sofa. “I totally have one of those.”

_What are you waiting for?!?_

Alec had no fucking idea.

The laptop was sitting unattended on the kitchen table and was better than the finest and freakiest malls in Hong Kong. With a small feeling of betrayal, he clicked off the tube and quickly headed for the internet.

He had some serious shopping to do.

 

 

 

 

The big box that arrived on the doorstep came a day late but Alec reasoned it was still Sunday somewhere else on the planet. And it arrived early enough in the morning so he could catch Sam and Dean both sitting at the table yawning over cereal.

Their spoons dripped milk on the table when Alec tossed the bowls into the sink.

“It’s a holiday,” Alec announced. “At least it was yesterday.”

Sam was still blinking groggily around for his breakfast.

“Holiday?” Dean ate what was left on his spoon. “What holiday?”

Alec realized too late that he probably should have gotten some wrapping paper or something. He settled for just handing Sam a knife to slice open the cardboard. It was kind of exciting standing around for the unveiling. The anticipation was like a pleasant nausea.

“This… this is really nice, Alec.”

Not only did Alec know the gift was nice, but he was for once completely confident of its relevancy. That website he’d found had said it was a really thoughtful thing that people gave other people all the time. All you had to do was supply a photograph and click on how fast you wanted the items shipped.

“It’s got your picture on it and everything,” Sam studied the enormous coffee mug and brushed away some packing foam. “A really … interesting picture.”

“You like it?” Alec had actually been a little worried about that part. “It’s from back in Seattle. From about a year ago.”

“Yeah, it’s great but uh…” Sam said. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot.”

“Where’s your shirt?”

“And what the hell is ‘Manty Cora‘?” Dean asked.

“MONTY Cora,” Alec corrected. “I was briefly employed by an underground fighting ring and they took a few promo pictures and--”

“Nice shorts,” Dean said. “Very sparkly.”

“Yeah,” Alec smiled. “Oh! I almost forgot…” Digging in the box he yanked out a large T-shirt with the same photo blown up on its front and back. He tossed it to his uncle. “That’s for you.”

“What the f--”

“I got one for me too,” Alec pulled out another one. “Buy twenty-five and get another one free. And a couple of mouse pads, some key chains and a throw pillow.”

“I’m sorry, did he just say… did you just say twenty-five?” Sam was clearing his throat a lot. “Twenty-five of that shirt? Are in that box? Twenty-five of the same--”

“Don’t worry, yours is in here too!” Alec said. “And I got another couple bucks off by getting this color. It’s called Canary Yellow.”

There was an absolute and utter silence that Alec understood came from stunned appreciation.

“W-What holiday was this again?” Dean asked.

Alec felt his smile grow as he went down the back porch steps two at a time. That helpful website had also suggested mowing the lawn and doing some yard work. Slightly discouraged by the overgrown mess of the grass, he figured he could knock it out in an hour and then get the hell out of here.

It was the least he could do.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Dean POV. Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder for EVERYBODY. (even the cat)_

Dean didn't like to advertise, but lately he hadn't been feeling that great.

For a while he'd figured he was just more tired than usual.

And it wasn’t that good worn out feeling at the end of a long month either. He was yawning all day and having fucked up dreams all night. But pausing at Sam’s closed door, he felt a certain amount of pride for his family’s mercenary ability for self neglect. He personally liked to skip the middle man completely by buying meds from a cash only hack who didn’t bother asking about symptoms. Illegally prescribed narcotics and a contingent of bed rest, and Dean Winchester just needed an alarm clock to notify him when it was time to get over it.

Hadn’t quite worked out that well this round though.

He was about to tap a knuckle on the door, but instead of knocking he went ahead and opened it. Experience had taught him the difference between real sleep and when his brother wanted to disappear for a while. Looked like these days Sammy was doing a lot of both. Shutting the door quietly, Dean thought that grabbing some down time in the middle of the day maybe wasn’t such a bad idea.

But his own bedroom wasn’t as unoccupied as Sam’s.

“Give me some Yiddish,” Alec didn’t look up from his book. “I need all forms of the verbs ‘to run’, ‘to expect’ and ‘to devise‘.”

“No idea.”

“But you have all this stuff in your room written in the Hebrew alphabet.”

“I’m in it for the pictures.”

"How about an easy one?" Alec tried. "To be? To have? To want?"

Shoving a stack of books off the bed, Dean wedged himself between the other piles and tried to get comfortable. “We got a perfectly good floor,” he said into the pillow. “And it’s great for storage.”

He felt Alec give a shrug beside him, the slight movement making the old mattress creak on its springs. The kid had started sleeping up in the attic again, but he was living downstairs. A warm breeze wafted in through the open window, pushing the curtains across Dean’s face and making him open his eyes. He was just in time to see the cat get ready to fling itself across the gap of the sill to the bed, launching with all paws outstretched like one of those freaky squirrels that could fly.

Dean shut his eyes again so he wouldn’t have to witness the tragic wipe out. But to his surprise, the dumb bastard made it. Just barely.

“Damn it,” Alec muttered as a heap of books hit the floor. “I just bookmarked all those.”

Lifting his arm, Dean rolled over a little so the tiny animal could burrow its way into his T-shirt via sleeve opening. It was itchy as all hell, but if he didn’t grant access he got a ruthless pair of claws instead.

“Haven’t you read all this shit already?” Dean asked. “Thrice?”

“So much stuff gets lost because its on paper,” Alec sighed in frustration. “It makes me wonder how much crap vanished after the Pulse because it wasn’t saved anywhere. I think I‘m gonna start scanning some of these. You know, just in case.”

Dean rubbed at his eyes and adjusted the alien-like pouch of cat now bulging on his chest. “Don’t worry about it so much. Think about all those guys with the temples down in Mexico.”

“Yeah, all they left behind was some piles of rock and a ball game.”

“But they left something.”

It was hard not to think about everything he wanted.

Dean did his best to keep it low like an unwanted radio station in the car. All of his noise was nudged up just high enough so that only he could hear it. There was a flare of worry that thinking about not thinking would somehow call more attention to himself. He glanced over at Alec but the kid was still busy flipping through page after crumbling page.

For some reason the oblivious look on his face made Dean’s jaw clench.

“Now the Romans,” Alec said absently. “They left behind something.”

“Toilets and dog fighting?

“Philosophy. Government. Morality.”

Dean was under the impression every culture came with those whether or not they wore a toga.

“Look Dean, all I’m just saying is that when you aren’t the conquer, your knowledge gets obliterated by the guys who win. And if everyone keeps insisting on printing…books… all we’ll have after the next world war is something to keep the fires lit.”

“Something bothering you?” Dean guessed.

“I’m being serious.”

“If that’s what you wanna call it.”

“I know you think about it sometimes too,” Alec opened another book. “Everybody does.”

Dean had an uneasy moment when he realized he didn’t know if Alec actually knew that for a fact or not. With a sickening lurch in his gut, he wondered exactly how little it would take for any of his family to pick through whenever they wanted in his head. The idea made him feel reckless, willing to shout just to see if anyone could hear it.

He allowed random memories to surface. Scents. Sounds.

What immediately came to mind was a little strange.

The first beheaded body he’d ever seen had been lying in a green field filled with sunflowers. In his memory the bobbing black eyes of the flowers had seemed more grotesque than the mutilation itself. With no effort at all, he conjured a night years later when he‘d first had to dismantle a human body himself. His thoughts wandered backwards to the more happy memory of the curve of bare shoulders in the glow of a bonfire on a dark beach. The glitter of wrecks on the highway. A sunset smoldering out over in the desert. He could think up a million other more mediocre and hideous things to fill the spaces in between.

But it was easier just to feel angry instead, the raw and simple emotion coming in loud and clear.

“Dean?“ Alec suddenly asked. “Where’d you get that?”

He was braced for a question, but the kid was looking down in distraction at Dean’s arm. Feeling the arc of the scar that wound down his bicep, he had to think for a second before he could recall when and how it’d happened.

“Knife.”

“What about that one?”

Dean checked his other arm. The marks whiter as the summer darkened his skin. “Knife.”

“How about the one on your neck?”

“Uh, knife.”

“Geeze.”

“I got a few bullet holes too,” Dean assured him. “And some bite marks--” He stopped talking when Alec’s hand unexpectedly slid over his and held it. He could feel a charge, something passing under his skin and running through them both like an electric current. Looked like Alec had picked up on something after all.

“Stop,” Dean went cold. “Let me go.”

Alec’s brow slowly creased in confusion.

“You’re mad at Sam.”

“I-I said let go of me,” Dean yanked at his hand again, fighting the anger that had shifted into nauseating panic. “Right now.”

“Yeah,” Alec said it soft and sad, like he was answering a question Dean hadn‘t asked. “I’m mad at him too.”

Sitting up awkwardly with his trapped hand between them, Dean heard books tumbling to the floor and his heart thudding in his ears. He could remember perfectly what had happened the last time he had been backed up against this wall. He remembered his brother wouldn’t let him go either. And Sam was telling him everything was going to be fine. Sam was talking about trust while he gently held Dean’s face and started ripping pieces of his mind away--

The painful grip pressing into Dean’s palm was gone.

“I don’t think Sam ever wanted us to feel like this,” Alec said. “At least I know that makes me feel better about… you know, feeling bad.”

“Alec-”

“Can I show you something?”

Dean tensed, looking at the open door and wishing he wasn’t so relieved that there was an open window right behind him too.

“Please don‘t?” Alec’s voice abruptly sounded timid. “Please don’t be scared of me.”

The honest fear in the kid’s eyes washed his anger away like a shock of clean and icy water. “I’m not,” Dean said. “I’m not, Alec. I’m just, I’m--”

Alec held out his hand for Dean to take if he wanted.

“What is it?” Dean felt stupid for asking, but he knew there was something unknown waiting in the touch.

“It’s easier. Easier than saying it I guess.”

Alec’s hand was shaking in his.

Dean could almost feel his own pupils dilate as it soaked in, Alec’s own grief large and gray, a weight that made him squeeze his eyes shut as they got hot and burned tears down his face. He could see all the rage hanging like a flimsy front to the simple childlike indignity of being hurt. Crushed. Disillusioned. Let down. Dean nodded once before he put Alec’s hand back down on the bed.

“I’m glad you told me that,” Alec said. “I felt kinda weird sometimes. You know, like I wasn’t allowed to be pissed off or something.”

Dean didn’t bother to remind him that he hadn’t said a thing. But the kid had an interesting point about the whole being glad part. Because truth be told, he was breathing a little easier already. “We should go into town,” he watched the cat roll on the floor and gnaw on an Aramaic dictionary. “I think the library has an old scanner. I bet you could fix it up and start savin’ these books before certain doom befalls the human race.”

“That sounds tedious,” Alec said hopefully. “And time consuming.”

“It sure does.”

“Can I drive?”

“No.”

He found the keys on the dresser and a pistol in the top drawer. It was time to get up and start moving again.

Maybe even take the scenic route.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a mini series- _Alec POV. A cursed music box turns everyone (except Alec) into a little kid._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said I needed some time to get out my weird ya-yas? This fic right here is one of them. This genre is oddly as appealing to me as genderswap although I don't know the technical name for it in fan-fic land. Age-Swap? Age-Degeneration?   
> And yes, of course it all happens by way of A Curse. It's just the way it works. (plus I'm too lazy to think of any other reason why this nonsensical bullshit would happen to anyone.) XD  
> -mink

“I appreciate you coming up here, Bobby,” Sam said. “Honestly with all this storage I wouldn’t have even to known where to start.”

Alec looked sideways at the stack of boxes that were usually sitting in the corners instead of all over the floor. His family’s idea of neat and tidy made his head spin, but over time he had started to just ignore the clutter of crap everywhere and anywhere.

Slow breathing exercises helped too.

“You should keep some of this stuff locked up,” Bobby said. “Or just get rid of it.”

“Get rid of it?” Dean laughed. “That would mean actually knowing what we owned.”

Alec felt his headache double at the words. He really shouldn’t have sat down to witness this pitiful attempt at organization but he couldn’t help himself. Watching the disorder spread and the chaos exponentially grow was like a good horror movie. He couldn't turn away even if he wanted to.

“The Father from Saint Michael’s is coming in early tomorrow,” Sam moved another box. “This place doesn‘t have to be clean just normal. The last thing I need is for the guy to wander around in here and find a few bibles written backwards in pig blood.”

Alec’s heart started pounding when Dean dumped an entire bag filled with rosary beads all over the floor.

“Yeah, I like this place,” Dean said. “It’d be nice not to get run outta town by an angry mob with torches.”

“Here we go.”

Everyone paused at the lowered seriousness in Bobby’s voice. Alec sat up in begrudging interest as the old man lifted the small wooden container out from behind a stack of yellowed folders. It looked like a music box, all carved and delicate, but its front was padlocked shut.

“What’s that?” Sam asked.

“I think I saw this back when your daddy was gettin' things from Eastern Europe,” Bobby smiled like he had found a diamond. “Bunch of stuff that had been sitting around behind soviet lines until the break up.”

“The lock is rusted,” Dean gingerly touched the latch. “What’s in it?”

“Not sure,” Bobby said. “Looks like a hex though, something really old school.”

Alec was ready to leave. They could sit around with their freaky tag sale and reminisce about murderous paranormal junk until the sun went down for all he cared. He could come back when they were gone and go sick with the Lemon Scented Pledge and a mop. He’d take all these dusty boxes and burn them in the backyard and dance around it until it was all-

That’s when it happened.

The box in Bobby’s hands stuttered with a dim light, like a weak and failing light bulb. And then the room suddenly seemed slightly darker than it had been moment before. Alec looked around with a yawn, wondering what had happened when all the other lamps to be working fine. That’s when he realized the room was also slightly less crowded than it had been.

Or at least a lot shorter.

“What the--” Alec blinked at the little kid who had been standing where his father had been a few moments earlier. There was another little boy off to his right and an even younger child sitting on the floor and staring down at that music box in his chubby fists.

The infant with the box in his lap suddenly and quite loudly, began to cry.

The oldest kid looked at him with a stunned expression that Alec recognized. It was his dad in there. Or down there. Or whatever.

“Alec?” Sam croaked in a high pitched squeak.

“Oh boy.”

 

 

 

 

Alec got them all at the kitchen table for a meeting on how to assess the situation.

He didn’t have much experience with this kind of nonsensical crap but it didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened. Everyone standing within a few feet of that box had been exposed to a blast pattern effect that erased a few decades of age from the closest to the furthest.

Bobby hadn’t really stopped crying but Alec thought most two-year olds might just do that. He petted the blond puff of hair on his head and tried bouncing him on a knee. Dean had been standing right next to Bobby, but he was definitely several years older. Sam had been the furthest and he’d been the least affected. If you could call being reduced to a ten year old coming out on top of the deal.

“Alec, I don’t want you to go near that box.”

Alec studied the skinny boy with his father’s eyes and familiar pout. While Sam had gotten a lot smaller, he pretty much sounded almost the same.

“I mean it, Alec,” Sam wouldn’t sit in his chair. “I think we should leave the house.”

“In a second,” Alec said. “Just… just give me a second here okay?” Their clothes were still hanging off them like a bunch of kids playing dress up. Alec experienced a moment of terror when he considered that one of them might have been armed before they shrank.

“Dean?” he asked. “Are you carrying a gun?”

It hadn’t occurred to Alec until now that his uncle hadn’t said a single word since the box went off.

“Hey, Dean? What’s wrong?”

Dean was an even scrawnier little kid than Sam was. He had kind of goofy ears and a startled expression that made Alec uneasy. Chest heaving, tears began to well bright in Dean’s big eyes.

“No, Dean. Don’t do that. No?” Alec ordered.

Sam watched his brother for a moment before his eyes started to water up too.

“Sam! No, I said no!”

Sam looked back and forth between them and gnawed anxiously on his lip.

“Keep it together people!” Alec demanded. “This is serious!”

Dean shoved his face down into his folded arms and started to quietly bawl.

“Nononono,” Alec moved to his side the best he could with Bobby screaming in his ear. “It’s okay? Look, Dean? See, I’m smiling right? This is all gonna be fine. We just gotta figure out what that box did and then fix you right up--”

“Alec,” Sam sniffled. “T-There’s someone here.”

Alec looked in a panic at the front door. He’d been so distracted he hadn’t even heard a car pull up. “Crap,” he thought fast. “Okay, you take B-Bobby upstairs and hang out for a while, okay?”

But Dean didn’t move from his seat at the table.

“Dean?” Alec snapped a few times in his face. “What’s wrong with him?”

“I think he’s five,” Sam offered. “Maybe.. Maybe four?”

“Oh,” Alec said. “Dean? Can you follow Sam? Be a good Dean and follow Sam. There ya go!”

Sam took his brother’s hand and pulled him towards the stairs. They both forgot the baby however, and Alec had to scoop up the kid on his way to the front door as the bell started going off. Answering the front door with a wailing child on his hip wasn't something he’d ever pictured himself doing, but there was a first for everything.

There was an elderly priest standing on the porch with a suitcase.

“Hello!” the man glanced down at Bobby with a smile. “Did I interrupt someone’s lunch?”

“What? No. I mean, kinda?” Alec smiled back. “You know how kids like to.. uh, eat.”

“Well, I’m very sorry to disturb you like this but I’m here to see Pastor Samuel if he’s available?”

“I-I’m sorry, who are you again?”

“I’m Father Chavez,” he held out his hand. “Samuel invited me here to look into state financial aid for some of members of his parish suffering from the current layoffs and--”

“Oh! Right. I see. Aren’t you a day early?”

“I believe this is the date we set?” he cleared his throat and looked at his watch. “If this is a bad time I could always come back in a few months when I return to the United States-”

“No need for that,“ Alec tried to stop talking but he couldn’t. “You found him. That’s me. I’m the Pastor.”

The man on the front step only lost a couple of beats before his smile was back in place.

“I see? Everyone always told me Pastor Samuel was young but I had no idea you were quite this--”

“Aw, stop that. You’re killin’ me.”

“Is this your... son?”

Alec had almost forgotten Bobby who had quieted down with their conversation.

“No! My son is … upstairs. This is my sister’s. She’s kind of a drunk. Always dumping off her kids while she goes to screw some guys down at the truck stop.”

“O-Oh.”

“I know, she’s quite the whore but we love her anyway. Because you know, God loves everybody even if they’re whores.”

“Right.”

“You want to come in?”

“Yes, thank you?”

“And uh, you wouldn’t happen to know how to change a diaper would ya?”

 

 

 

 

 

It had taken Alec the rest of the afternoon, but he figured out how handle it as fast as he could.

A couple of phone calls found Father Chavez a place to stay in town that wasn’t coated in cursed objects and loaded guns. And to sweeten the deal the same lady with an extra guest room had taken one look at Bobby and solved that problem too. Although the woman had staked claim to the upset baby with a ferocity that should have made Alec nervous, he was too relieved to think much more about it.

He paused at the foot of the stairs.

For kids they sure were quiet.

When he got up to the first bedroom and still didn’t see them he wondered if they’d left the house somehow. But then he heard a small voice down the hallway calling out his name. Alec could feel the mind behind the voice now too, his father’s thoughts coming brighter and cluttered, too fast to hold like a butterfly caught under a glass.

“Sam?”

“I’m in here.”

Alec found his dad sitting awkwardly in the corner of the very back room. He’d put on a T-shirt to wear that came down to his knees, his legs and feet bare. There was no furniture or anything else in there and Alec realized his father had come here to hide.

“Where’s Dean?” Alec asked.

Sam pointed behind him.

Alec frowned at the closed closet door. “Okay,” he said. “That’s enough of this. Why are you guys sitting around in the dark? It’s weird. That guy wasn’t going to do anything. He’s really nice by the way. He’s really excited about giving a bunch of money into that charity thing you got going on.”

It took him a moment to spot Dean shoved back in the corner. Alec found an arm and started to pull him back into the light of day.

And then Dean proceeded to freak the fuck out.

“Okay! Okay!” Alec quickly let go. “Take it easy! It’s just me! You know who I am right?” Looking into the wide green eyes, Alec could tell that Dean knew exactly who he was and couldn’t have cared less. “Come on, work with me.”

“He won’t come out.” Sam said.

“Why not?” Alec tried pulling on a leg this time and got a bite on the hand. “What’s going on?”

Sam and Dean were silent.

“What… are you tired?” Alec tried. “You need some food?”

“Alec, I…,” Sam scratched at his head. “I don’t feel right.”

“Are you in pain?”

“No.”

“Then what is it?”

Sam suddenly looked mortified. “I’m scared.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t know how old I am,” Sam wiped his nose with his hand. “I think-I think--”

Alec held up his hands and took a deep breath. “Look, I’d be scared in here too,” he looked around the dismal dark. “Let’s go downstairs.”

Dean started making some weird whimpering noise from the depths of the closet.

“No, no, don’t start that up again,” Alec skipped the persuasion part and picked him up despite the savage kicking. “We’re all going downstairs and we’re gonna watch cartoons. Cartoons are great. And we’re gonna eat something and we’re not going to be scared because there’s nothing to be scared of.”

Dean stopped flailing around long enough to listen to that last part.

“Nothin’ is gonna happen to you,” Alec explained. “Because for something to happen to you means something has to kick my ass first and my ass is hard to kick. Is everyone listening?”

Sam appeared slightly more willing to leave the room.

“That stupid magic box really nailed you guys, huh?” Alec sighed.

“Where’s Bobby?” Sam suddenly thought to ask.

“Living it up.” Alec guessed.

Alec thought it was a good sign when Dean finally grabbed him in a choke hold tight around the neck and hung there for dear life. It beat getting kicked to death in the liver and kidneys. He also thought it was an even better sign when Dean hopefully whispered the name of a likely cartoon in his ear as they went down the stairs.

“Hey, Sam?” Alec ventured. “Do you have any outlines for church services? You know like um, lesson plans for the flock? Prayer lists? That kind of stuff?”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “I got some.”

“That’s good because I’ll be needing to take a look at it when you get the chance.”

Sam’s brow creased in worry.

“It’s okay,” Alec assured him. “I have a really good public speaking voice. The uniform might not fit too great though…”

“W-What are you talking about?”

“Nothing!” Alec smiled. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

“But-But--”

“Do you want hot dogs or grilled cheese? How about both. With some coffee?”

Everything was completely and utterly under control. He could deal with it. Alec picked up the telephone before he realized he wouldn’t be able to get a hold of Bobby. Slamming the receiver back down he thought that was a real damn shame too.

Because he probably would have known exactly what the hell to do next.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mini series. literally.

Alec was having a really great dream.

By divine happenstance he had somehow achieved complete control over the filthy house and all the Lysol. With no one to interfere every room had been completely emptied, the floors waxed and windows shined. Books were neatly stacked. Tile was bleached. Sinks were scoured.

It was blissful and glittering in the sunlight…

He rolled over and stretched across the mattress without opening his eyes.

“Alec? Alec wake up!”

The high-pitched voice in his ear made his smile falter a little bit. There had been another part to the dream he’d had. It had been a lot less pleasant and pretty freaking weird.

Alec reluctantly opened his eyes and saw two little boys staring down at him anxiously.

“You have to get up,” Sam whispered. “That man is back.”

The cat was struggling in and out of Dean’s hands like a pissed off Slinky toy.

Okay, so only some of it had been a beautiful dream. The house still looked like it always did. It actually even appeared a little worse than usual after last night’s coffee session with the cartoons. Alec still wasn’t sure how that much puke could come out of a kid as skinny and small as Dean currently was. Sam had taken to the caffeine like a trooper though. In fact, he got so wired he helped Alec for an hour putting together financial aid applications for Father Chavez. Before he puked and crashed too.

“Leave my cat alone,” Alec told Dean. “And put on some clothes. I understand our roots are white trash but we don’t have to be proud of it--”

“Come on,” Sam tugged at his hand. “Hurry up!”

“And nobody gets any more beer,” Alec yawned. “Except for me.”

 

 

 

Father Chavez was very grateful for all the paperwork, but slightly confused that all their business was conducted on the porch in boxer shorts. Alec tried to keep his smile intact while the priest expressed how much he was looking forward to the services that evening. It was easy to fool one guy no problem but the entire town might notice that Alec wasn’t their real Pastor.

He stood there waving goodbye at the rental car until he suddenly remembered that he had to feed the kids.

Or his parents.

Whatever.

Alec watched his carefully assembled P&J sandwiches be picked apart and licked clean.

He caught Sam mashing some of his sandwich between his teeth for his own amusement. And apparently the amusement of his brother, because suddenly they were trying to outdo one another in Wonder Bread mutilation.

“Someone’s gonna choke,” Alec said “Quit it.”

Sam shrugged and Dean slurped back in his food.

“I could use some cooperation you know,” Alec found some stale leftover coffee. “I think everyone should start thinking about Team Work.”

Dean stuck out his tongue in an effort to look at it.

“There’s no I in WE. Or ME in Group. Or however that stupid saying goes.”

Although Alec was tired, Sam and Dean appeared wide awake and ready for action. They should be considering they both slept like rocks. Alec hadn’t minded that part too much. He kind of liked how they could all fit in one bed and no one seemed to mind the overlapping.

“And you guys stink,” Alec said. “Like more than usual.”

“Shut up,“ Sam frowned. “Do not.”

“Do too.” Alec countered.

Alec waited for Dean to say something and realized that the kid didn’t talk much. In fact, he didn’t speak at all. He supposed that the both of them were kind of freakishly well behaved for children. Even the X5s back in the barracks broke out in the occasional pillow fight when the time was right. But Alec could sense some lingering adulthood hanging on in Sam and Dean’s head.

Except for the cat torturing parts and an occasional requirement for aid in the bathroom.

“Are you sure you told the Father what I said?” Sam’s vocabulary might have changed but his tone was still there. “Are you sure he’s not going to come tonight?”

“Come where?” Alec took Dean’s discarded bread crusts.

“The church.”

“Oh, yeah,“ Alec tried to ignore his dad’s gaze narrowing on him. “I took care of all that.”

“Me now?” Dean’s voice was funny, like a raspy squeak of air. He even raised his hand like they were sitting in a class room. "Me?"

Sam’s aggravation evaporated at the sound of his brother, his agitated legs under the table stopping in mid-kick. Alec saw that Dean was waiting impatiently for some kind of prompting before he continued.

“Go ahead, Dean. Speak up.”

Dean pushed expectantly at his plate.

“He’s still hungry,” Sam got back to his own sandwich. “And he wants milk.”

Wondering how the hell Sam had picked that up from one plate-push, Alec quickly moved to comply.

“I want some milk too,” Sam added. “Chocolate milk?”

“Sure.”

It didn’t occur to Alec until he was pouring milk into glasses that his dad had just asked him for permission. Thinking of the music box he‘d stashed in the attic, he wondered for the first time what the thing’s full effect might be. He’d also been hoping real bad that its lame magic would just wear off, but he knew that was probably a nice pipe dream too. Nothing around here was ever that easy.

“I’m done!” Sam announced.

“Uh.. okay,” Alec didn’t know how to answer that one. “Thanks?”

Leaving their dishes on the table, Dean hastily slid out of his chair and followed Sam to wherever it was that he was going. Alec expected the television to turn on but he heard the groan of the pipes instead. He was glad Sam was giving himself a shower because he wasn’t quite sure he was up to orchestrating a forced shampooing. Helping himself to the milk, Alec paused when he heard another shrill voice joining his father’s in the echo of the upstairs bathroom.

Looked like Dean liked to talk after all.

Just not with everybody.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the hijinks are still jinking.

Alec had to admit that the priest gear fit a lot better than he’d hoped.

Turning around in the mirror he discovered that the only really important thing was the white collar anyway and that didn’t have a height requirement. The black shirt was a little long in the sleeves but rolling it up a little didn’t look that strange. Ironed pants, polished shoes, a solemn expression of enlightenment and this sham was good to go. He stopped admiring his piety long enough to fix his hair.

The collar even came up high enough to cover the barcode.

He plugged in the last lamp he could find and sighed when it did nothing to further illuminate the dreary little office. Maybe Alec had been raised under the glare of too many fluorescent bulbs, but the gloomy half-light his family liked to operate in got on his nerves. He opened the curtains instead, clouds of dust wafting through the shafts of sunlight as he pried open the panes to let in some fresh air while he was at it.

Alec heard Dean before he saw him.

The weeping didn’t have that furious pitch behind it that other kids usually had. It was like Dean was too tired to do it right, letting out something breathless and subdued instead. Alec quickly located him sitting alone in the corner of the dirt driveway and clutching his arm. Feeling a twinge of irritation at himself for not knowing what his charges had been up to for the last few hours, Alec took a shortcut out the window.

“Stay right there!” Alec called. “I’m coming!”

Using the porch roof and a tree to help him not mess up his uniform on the way down, he was standing next to Dean in no time flat.

“You all right?” Alec examined Dean’s bloody elbow and then a nearby bucket. Then he spotted a hammer sticking out of a box of cereal. And what looked like the telephone shattered into a hundred little pieces. “What the hell are you doing out here?”

Dean tried kicking Alec in the face but the crying threw off his aim.

Alec had found a bunch of little kid clothes in a donation bag out in the shed, but there were brand new rips in the denim knees and mud on Dean’s T-shirt with a tiger declaring: Born to be Wild! But he could tell that the cuts and scratches weren’t really what was causing all the ruckus.

“Where’s Sam?” Alec asked.

Dean pointed at the church down the hill.

“Are you kiddin’ me?” Alec said.

Dean shook his head.

“Shouldn‘t he be out here hanging out with you?”

Dean stopped shaking his head and began to nod uncertainly. Alec stood his uncle up and made sure everything else on him still worked before heading down the drive. Dean dug the hammer out of the cereal box and followed at a distance.

The church doors were closed but they had been unlocked.

Alec rattled them once and could tell they hadn’t been unlocked in the conventional way. Sam wasn’t the kind of man that required a key, and apparently he wasn’t the kind of child that did either.

He reached out with his mind and caught glimpses of his father listening to him enter the empty building. It was surprising how Sam’s thoughts felt now. The simple primary colors of youth should have been easy to read, but the complexity of the lingering adult smeared them around into something inscrutable. Stepping into the cool dark of the vestibule, Alec thought for the very first time what Sam’s childhood might have been like. Growing up in Manticore had taught Alec to believe that any family that lived outside the barbed wire fences had to be perfect. It even made him a little angry when anyone who grew up normal showed the slightest dissatisfaction or dared suggest that what they’d had might not have been.

But when he saw Sam sitting by himself on the pulpit steps, he considered what kind of little boy would be using a sunny afternoon to sit alone in dim candlelight with a book.

“Hi, Sam,” Alec didn’t have to be loud to be heard. “Was looking for you for hours.”

“You’ve been in my office for hours.”

Alec wondered if lying to Sam now would be considered worse for any reason.

“I heard Dean so I came outside.”

“It’s weird huh? It looks like nothing ever happened in here,” Sam glanced up the center aisle and the new pews. “No one would ever know there was a fire.”

“Can still smell it,” Alec said. “Like burnt toast.”

A few weeks back he had helped out some, but it had been his uncle and dad that had done most of the work to get the church back into shape. They hadn’t wanted him near what had been an open gate even if every trace of it had fizzled away back into nothing. But it was pretty damn amazing what a coat of varnish and some belt sanding could accomplish. You’d never guess in a million years that an entry to hell had been ripped open in this very spot...

“A-And the ceiling,” Sam said. “Couldn’t fix that.”

Alec looked up at the perfect circle singed into the wood over their heads. The circumference was large and perfect, but far enough up in the shadows of the eaves that no one would notice unless they were looking for it. Alec was imagining the flames that had burned there when he realized Sam was now looking at him instead.

More specifically, Alec’s borrowed priestly attire.

“You like it?” Alec grinned. “It‘s a little loose in the shoulders but otherwise it’s a great fit.”

“I know I haven’t been totally honest with this town but-but this is different. It’s not a nice thing to do. These people tell me things in …in,” Sam took a second to find the word, “…confidence… and they trust me with things, important private things.”

“I know. I totally get it,” Alec said. “Look, I told Chavez to come a few hours early for a meet and greet with the lady from the aid program. I won’t even see the congregation unless someone shows up uninvited, and that might be a hassle but don’t worry about it because--”

“Thanks, Alec. I appreciate you doing all this,” Sam folded his arms around his knees and somehow looked even smaller. “A lot of people are counting on me… counting on me to help them out…”

“Speaking of which,” Alec cleared his throat. “You can’t go leaving Dean around with cereal and telephones like that. Remember all those inspiring speeches I gave about Team Work?”

“He’s right outside,” Sam said quickly. “I gave him stuff to play with.”

“The guy is like 4-years-old,” Alec said. “He could get backed over by a car or a coyote or something.”

“B-But he wouldn’t come in here.”

Alec glanced back over his shoulder and saw Dean still waiting just outside on the stairs.

“Why not?”

“Because he said it’s where we keep dead people.”

Alec had a brief flash of the crypts and the black marble tomb that sat somewhere beneath them in the basement. Ben had left him for dead under that slab of rock. Prepared him for eternity, probably said a lovely prayer, and sealed him under the stone like tucking in a child goodnight. He had never thought about his uncle being bothered by finding him like that. And maybe Dean hadn’t been thinking much about it at all until the music box came along.

“Is this whole thing getting worse?” Alec wasn’t sure if ‘worse’ was the right word. “Do you think that you might be becoming more and more like… real kids?”

“I’ve been reading, but I can’t read everything as fast. I don’t understand everything I see anymore either,” Sam wiped an arm over his eyes. “But I’ll find something. I just need more time.”

Sam looked worriedly at the scatter of books behind him and all around the altar. His father had said he’d needed more time as if he knew for a fact it was steadily running out. The coherency he could keep up for now was draining out of his head like sand, grain by grain until the brain would finally match the body.

“I’ll take another look at that music box,” Alec said. “Maybe there’s something written on it that can help?”

“No way, Alec. I told you not to touch it,” Sam told him. “What if this happens to you too?”

“No biggie,“ Alec had already thought of that peculiar outcome. “What’s the worst that can happen? I give it a shot and maybe I get zapped into a zygote. You’re old enough to keep us all alive until the cops get here and then--”

“And then what?” Sam stood up.

Alec realized that the fierce look in his dad’s eyes was fear.

“And then, I don’t know… I just mean that everything will be fine, Sam.”

“No cops,” Sam looked around like the flash of sirens might start pulling up in front of the church at any second. “Do you hear me? They’ll take us away. They won’t listen to us and we won’t be able to do anything about it. We won’t be able to do anything!”

“Hey, relax. I-I’m sorry,” Alec stepped forward as Sam backed up almost behind the podium, his chest heaving and his eyes glittering wet. “I won’t try out the music box, okay? I won’t even look at it.”

“You promise?” Sam asked. “Swear you’ll promise!”

The ridiculous demand was so innocently sincere that Alec could only answer in kind. “I swear,” he nodded. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Sam calmed slightly with those words and Alec was forced once again to wonder who the little boy in front of him really was. All the running and hiding. The distrust of strangers. Sitting in the dark until the coast was clear.

They both turned at the sound of his uncle’s squeaky rasp.

“Alec? Alec! ALEC!”

“I’m right here. With Sam. And hey, there’s not a dead person in sight either so why don’t you come on in?”

“Come back?“ Dean demanded tentatively. “Come back out now?”

Alec turned and saw the kid leaning through the double doors as far as he could without actually touching the floors. And with a sudden and painful pang of jealousy, Alec knew he still would have taken the standard Winchester childhood over his own any day of the week.

“What if Father Chavez saw us?” Sam’s lower lip began to tremble. “What if he doesn’t believe what you said?”

It was a good thing Alec knew all about the art of distraction.

“So, are you going to keep it all to yourself or what?” Alec adjusted his white collar and pressed jacket. “I ain’t got all day.”

“Huh?” Sam blinked in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“You never said how awesome I look.”

Alec watched Sam fight back a smile for a few seconds before giving up. He liked the sight of that grin a lot, but he really liked how it looked on his father as a child. In one split second it changed all that apprehension directly into unabashed joy. But then it became clear that Sam was also trying pretty hard not to laugh.

“What?” Alec was willing to take a smirk at his own expense but this was pushing it. “What’s so funny?”

“Are you afraid of heights? Sam covered his mouth with both hands.

“No?”

“Well, your zipper is!”

Alec put two and two together and realized he’d just heard a lame yet somewhat brilliant joke. And he also quickly saw that his festive Christmas-theme boxers (also borrowed) were sticking out through the open fly of his trousers. “I knew that,” he grumbled. “Just waitin’ for you to finally notice.”

Sam kept right on laughing it up.

“That’s what you get buyin’ polyester suits with stupid cheap zippers anyway--”

“Alec!” Dean had ventured a few feet into no man’s land and was hopping around like the ground was electrified. “Come back now! Come back! COME BACK!”

“Settle down, I’m coming!” Alec checked his fly one more time before turning his attention to the front doors. “No! No, Dean! Bad Dean! Get your ass off that banister ‘cause you’re gonna-- aw crap,” he gave up and knelt down to help Sam collect his books. “By the way, have you people recently had your tetanus shots? Because you should know that this entire place is a staph infection waiting to happen.”

Sam blew out the last of the candles he was using.

“Now that‘s really funny,” Alec caught the large bible still sitting open on the step. “You do that a lot?”

“What?” Sam slammed it closed. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Sure,” Alec half smiled. “I’ve never seen anyone write in a bible before. I thought that was against the law or something.”

“Just some notes.”

Sam pushed past him and almost ran out the front doors.

Alec supposed most kids liked to deface text books when they were bored. Although Sam’s graffiti wasn’t the usual array of talking phallic symbols and disproportioned killer robots, it was a mad tangle of scribble where there shouldn’t have been any at all. He pulled at the snug collar around his neck and checked his watch.

It was almost time to be the Pastor.

With a grin he imagined what would happen if he wore this get up down to the bar on the freeway. However, the fantasy of wantonly confessional women rapidly disintegrated as he remembered he’d also have two kids waiting for him in the backseat.

Sam was dragging Dean by the hand back to the house.

Alec’s smile faded as he listened to their inane chatter about Thunder Cats and macaroni and cheese. He was going to have another look at the music box tonight. And he was going to get on top of this situation before it got any more complicated than it already was. Besides, his family figured out preposterous and illogical problems like this one all the time.

How difficult could it possibly be?


	8. Chapter 8

Alec liked the combination of car maintenance and divine spiritual guidance.

Not that he could accomplish either with great efficiency at the same time, but the long black cassock never showed any oil stains and its voluminous drape was good for wiping off tools.

“Are you sure ma’am?” Alec held the phone with one hand while he examined a carburetor with the other. “’Cause we sure do miss having little Bobby around. All the non-stop screeching and messin’ his pants? I’m telling you its like an angel has left the building.”

The cheerful mother of seven on the other end of the line dismissed such nonsense, and assured him that another delightful child in her happy home was fine with her. She was just so grateful she was able to help when she could, considering the questionable lifestyle of the missing mother.

“Well, we sure want to thank you for helping out,” Alec said. “In the mean time, your car doesn’t look so bad. Just needs a few new parts and it’ll be back on the road in no time.”

It was her turn to start thanking him non-stop and asking if he was sure he didn’t mind the hassle. Yanking on the loose fuel pump, Alec figured that resuscitating the ancient mini-van was the least he could do for a woman willing to deal with Bobby’s loaded diapers. She went onto explain how’d she’d wrecked the thing at an intersection two towns over and she was just so sick and tired of the dangers of today’s unsafe roads.

“Well, you know what the philosopher Confucius said about driving?” he tried a joke he’d heard Dean make at the garage. “A man who drives like hell is bound to get there.”

He heard an uncertain pause before her polite laugh crackled over the telephone line.

“Yeah, anyway, I can have this all done in a few days,” he said. “I’ll even wash all that crayon off the backseats. Unless uh, you wanted it there? Oh… oh, okay, yeah, I can wash the magic marker off the windows too. And the doors. A-And the inside of the trunk? You got it!”

Alec wasn’t sure what she said before she hung up, but it sounded close enough to another big thank you. Looking at the engine one more time, he decided to take the transmission apart piece by piece and clean it until it shined. That air filter could go too, and so could every crusty spark plug coated in a few decades of grease--

“Alec!”

“I’m out front, Sam!”

“Alec, I gotta show you something!”

“In a second.”

Tossing an oil rag aside, he sat down on the porch stairs next to a large cardboard box. The thing was stuffed with hundreds and hundreds (949 to be exact) of completed applications. In about an hour he had to sit with Father Chavez and have a pow-wow with a not-so-kindly Federal Accountant who would decide if all their efforts were a waste of time or not.

Flipping through all the carefully filed last names, Alec wondered how long it would take to simply steal the funds that Sam was going through all the trouble to respectfully ask for.

“Alec, you have to see this!”

It wasn’t as if the little town was asking for heated pools and brand new cars either. The small amounts allocated to each individualized family looked like more of a stipend for a winter worth of heat. Or groceries. Maybe a couple doctor’s bills.

“ALEC!”

He dropped the box on the steps and hurried in the direction of the backyard.

Sam was breathless with excitement. In fact, the happy and contented look on his face was so distracting that Alec almost didn’t notice the music box sitting in his hands.

“W-What are you doing? Put that down! You’ll turn into a fetus!”

“It works! It goes both ways!”

“How do you know?”

Sam looked guilty all of a sudden, the sunny gaze turning sullen as he started jamming the toe of his sneaker into the dirt.

“Where’s Dean?” Alec needed to know. “Where’d he go?”

“He’s over there,” Sam said. “In that tree.”

Alec turned just in time to see a hammer fall from about twenty feet and re-smash the telephone that was laid out in the fallen leaves below like a modern art mosaic. The cereal hadn’t suffered the same fate however. Tony the Tiger was up in the branches with Dean for emergency sustenance.

And his uncle looked fine. Really high up above the ground, but otherwise intact. Sam looked fine too. But how his father had figured out that this thing worked in reverse was still a mystery--

“Mrrr-ack-mmr-mroooo.”

Alec had never heard a more decrepit and horrible sound come out of a living thing. He carefully picked up the mottled gray heap of fur collapsed at his feet. The animal was nothing but skin and bones, teeth missing and the once bright eyes cloudy with cataracts. “What- what is this?”

Sam’s smile came back in full force. “I played the music and the cat got old!”

“This isn’t old, Sam,” Alec corrected him. “This is what science calls almost dead.”

“But now we can do it!” Sam clapped. “And we can be like we used to be!”

“No,” Alec shook his head. “No way.” The cat started purring like an asthmatic when Alec scratched the tattered ears.

“Why not?”

“I got one reason right here!” Alec wanted to shake the cat in Sam’s face for emphasis but he didn't want to break the damn thing. “Does this look RIGHT to you?”

“Cats age a lot faster than people,” Sam explained. “And it wouldn’t get away from the box when the egg timer went off and--”

Alec grabbed the music box and pushed Sam towards the porch. “Get Dean and your ass in the house and don’t answer the door when the Father gets here.”

“W-What are you going to do?”

“I’m gonna fix my cat.” Alec clutched the animal closer. “And then you.”

 

 

 

 

Alec placed the box in the middle of the back yard and considered his options.

There was nothing written anywhere on it but there was a tiny crank to turn on the music. He had listened to Sam’s explanation of accidentally mummifying their pet and he got the gist of the mechanism inside. This thing worked in two directions and that was good news, but the thing was also created specifically to fuck up someone’s day.

Alec was trying to keep that important detail in mind.

“Let’s try this backwards, huh?”

Using a flipped over laundry basket to contain the cat and the box, Alec let the crank go and blurred backwards out of range. The music clinked and pinged the wrong way down a century old Russian tune and gradually ground down to silence again. When Alec peeked back around the side of the house, he braced himself for just about anything.

“Here boy!” Alec whistled. “Are you dead?”

There were paws and a nose poking through the plastic net of the basket. The cat looked the opposite of dead. In fact, the kitten appeared suspiciously a lot like when Alec had first rescued it from the storm drain all those weeks ago. The little guy could fit perfectly into the palm of his hand again with its radar dish ears back to their ludicrous proportions.

“Would ya look at that?” Alec’s shoulders hitched in a laugh. “It worked.”

Alec’s felt his heart skip a beat as the music box started to chime again all by itself. The day went dark as clouds began to blot out the late afternoon sun, the light flickering and dimming as rain began to fall. The music picked up as the gears slipped into motion, the crank turning one complete and full rotation before abruptly ending mid-note again.

After it was over Alec realized he hadn’t been able to move.

The kitten in his lap was less than a day old now, delicate pink paws, eyes closed and unable to lift itself off its white soft belly.

“Kitty!” Alec felt unreasonable amounts of glee. “It’s kitty for me!”

He clamped oddly small hands over his mouth.

It was a bizarre relief to see Sam suddenly appear on the porch even if he was wearing a Power Ranger sweatshirt and hefting a hammer. Alec realized he was now tangled in a sea of black cloth, the cassock that hung and draped down to his ankles now burying him under its stifling weight. He simultaneously experienced panic and terror when he realized he couldn’t stay upright long enough to walk. When he opened his mouth he also discovered the frustration of not being able to articulate any of this new information to his ten-year-old father.

But Alec could say one thing just fine.

“Sam!” Alec held out his arms up in a effort to convey something. Exactly what he wasn‘t sure, but it was pure agony when his dad didn’t seem like he was going to pick him up. “SAM!”

“What’d you do, Alec?” Sam asked. “What happened?”

“I fixed the kitty,” Alec said miserably. “See?”

Alec wanted to explain how the music went backwards and forwards but all he could think about was how he’d messed up. He wasn’t supposed to be like this and now Sam was going to be angry. He didn’t want Sam angry. He wanted Sam to be happy. Alec was just trying to make things right. Alec was just trying--

“Alec, hey, don’t do that!”

The house was shaking and the window glass was rattling in the panes. Alec rubbed at his burning eyes and started to really cry because he knew he could do a lot more than make it all shake. But he didn’t know how to stop it. Dean came cautiously out the back door, looking up at the clattering house in bewildered awe.

“Sam do it!” Alec groped for the box. “Sam do it!”

Father Chavez’s rental car pulled up on the opposite side of the house, tires grinding in the gravel and a friendly greeting honk on the horn to announce his arrival.

Alec watched his father and uncle’s eyes go perfectly round.

And then he wet himself.


	9. Chapter 9

Sam didn’t have the whole deal completely figured out yet, but the end results were hard to miss.

His breath caught in his throat when the music box almost slipped out of his sweaty grip, the music lurching for a brief moment with one disjointed chord in the dark. It was sweltering hot inside the cramped tool shed and its walls were practically Dean-proof.

“Sam?” Dean was right outside the door. “Lemme in there.”

“No! Stay right where you are!”

The fragile wooden box was oddly cool despite the temperature. The delicate gears inside would certainly break if he did anything the wrong way. And if Sam broke the box that would mean no more music. And no more music meant a gruesome disaster of unparalleled and horrific proportions. Slumping to his knees, Sam wondered if he’d had this penchant for drama all his life, or it was just renewed adolescence spicing up his hysterics.

The barricade of the garden hose and rakes weren’t going to keep his brother out for much longer.

“Cut it out you jerk!” Sam shouted. “You gotta stay out there with Alec!”

“B-But the man is gonna find us!”

“I just need a minute,” What Sam really needed was an entire afternoon to fine tune himself back into 37-year-old shape. But all he had were seconds before Father Chavez gave up on the front door and decided to take a walk around their backyard instead. “J-Just give me a minute, okay?”

With a frown, he carefully felt out the small shape of the crank on the box’s side. In Alec’s enthusiasm the flimsy mechanism got wound so tight that the old thing clearly didn’t have many turns left in it before the coils finally snapped. Thanking his lucky stars that the thing still went forward, he twisted it as gently as he could and started to count down slowly from ten.

Sam knew he was taller right away.

Heaving opening the shed doors, he saw heaven, earth and everything in between was back in the correct perspective. Dean was looking up at him. Up, up and up until he finally found Sam’s face.

“That’s not you,” he scowled. “You’re still a kid.”

“This is good enough for now,” Sam scooped up Alec who was sitting a few feet away and happily shoving clumps of grass into his mouth. “And you’re my cousin now but your name is the same. You got it?”

“I’m Dean!”

“Good,” Sam experienced a smug satisfaction that his teenaged body didn’t feel as carefree as his rosy memory always insisted it had. Although, he was minus quite a few pounds which unfortunately seemed to have been all muscle mass. “What’s your favorite animal, Dean?”

Dean pointed at him. “You!”

“Funny.”

Sam breathlessly caught up with Father Chavez in the driveway.

“It’s an honor to finally meet you, Father,” he moved Alec to his other arm so he could shake hands. “After everything your firm has done with labor law in Mexico, w-we are so lucky having a lawyer with your kind of experience to help us. Thank you for answering all of my... uh all the letters and--”

“Hold on now! Just hold on,” the Father laughed. “Have we met?”

“No, sorry, I’m Pastor Samuel’s… cousin,” he said. “I live here during the summer.”

“And who are your friends?”

“The one over there with the hammer is Dean and…” Sam cleared his throat. “… a-and this one here is my son, Alec.”

“He looks just about old enough to start walking on his own I bet!”

“Yeah, he sure does.”

Sam realized the music box had made him around the right age when Alec had been a toddler for the first time. The thought made him imagine Jessica standing there with them, a gentle image of her face coming to him warm and bright as the setting sun through the trees.

He was distracted by his son making delighted and fruitless grabs for the shiny crucifix hanging on the priest’s chest. “Can you say hello to the Father, Alec?”

Alec stopped trying to score the crucifix and promptly shoved his face into Sam’s neck.

“He’s a shy one I see?” Father Chavez said.

“I guess so,” Sam held Alec a little closer, suddenly wishing he hadn’t been in such a rush to meet with the priest despite all the people in town depending on it. He wanted to hold Alec for a while and look for all of the other things he’d missed. Maybe see if Alec would talk a little more. Find out what made him curious. What made him laugh--

“This house is blessed with so many children,” the Father said with a nod. “How wonderful.”

Sam found himself smiling back.

He made sure he sounded grave and concerned as he explained that Pastor Samuel had taken their wayward female relation to a half-way house in the next county. When the harried accountant arrived late in her rented SUV, Sam listened to Father Chavez calmly go through the motions of setting up a meeting on a porch with folding chairs like he did it everyday. No one seemed to mind Sam sitting in while Alec dozed in the string hammock in the corner. Dean stayed in sight with a cereal box and a (empty) tool case, but he was quiet too. They all drank iced tea and discussed the details as the sun went down.

Sam breathed a sigh of relief when the priest and the federal accountant finally shook hands. When the woman turned to collect her things, Father Chavez gave Sam a sly and triumphant wink behind her back.

The money was as good as theirs.

“Would you like to stay for dinner, Father?” Sam asked.

“I’d like that.”

He hoped the guy didn’t mind leftovers.

 

 

 

The elderly man had smoked hand-rolled cigarettes, the aroma of the leaves lingering heavy and humid like the weather in a hot country. The pleasant scent remained long after the man had wished them well and driven off, filled to the brim with fried chicken and boiled corn right from the fields out back.

“Can I have one more?” Dean asked.

There were six chocolate chip cookies left on the plate and Dean had already eaten three.

“Please?” Dean’s hope was shifting into despair. “One more?”

Sam nodded and watched his brother forgo the risk of future denial by simply taking the entire plate away for hiding.

“Dude,” Sam said. “At least leave me one.”

“No!”

After dinner Sam had played the music box until he knew he was back to where he should be. There was no guessing or mistakes. The years clicked into place just as exactly and perfectly as the fitted gears found each other in the machine. But he hadn’t been able to help himself from examining his hand to see if he could actually tell that time had been properly realigned.

Nothing there but a few scars.

When he was done he hid the box back in the shed before Dean saw it.

They all sat outside while the sunset dimmed pink and gold on the clouds. Alec liked to sit on his lap so Sam kept him there. His son kept twisting around in Sam’s arms until he was sometimes laying upside down. He liked to feel Sam’s chin and mouth with his sticky fingers and laugh like someone had told a joke. When Alec couldn’t think of enough words to say he’d sing them instead, a sleepy drone of noise that he took up and left off as his eyes opened and closed. When Sam spoke to Dean, Alec’s small body would still as he listened, his heart pounding under Sam’s hand steady and strong.

“Look what I did!” Dean said.

“That one sucked,” Sam laughed. “Do another one.”

Dean always liked showing off even if only one other person was watching.

Sam knew the last glimmer of the adult in his brother had faded away hours ago. It had been about around when Dean decided to start to collecting fireflies and putting them in a jar. Sam had felt the slip of his own awareness before he played the music box and brought himself back. Bits and pieces of his mind had been vanishing into the easy bliss of childhood. But none of it was disappearing forever. The music box just tucked it to sleep with all the worries and cares of the grown up world. And now Dean was too far gone to even realize anything had happened to him at all. There was no demand or urgency that the problem be solved. There was no panic that nothing had been done to restore him to his normal state. But that was okay, because Sam knew how the magic worked and the one-hundred-year old talisman wasn‘t going anywhere for at least this one night.

The moon had come out with a few stars, the pink glow of the sun still dying on the horizon.

And it turned out that Dean had been collecting the fireflies for Alec. One by one until the jar glowed like a lantern. Sam liked how careful Alec was when he held them each one by one. Not mashing them into pieces or smearing them just to see how long their insides would keep giving off their pale light.

“Look, Alec,” Dean said. “Look.”

It felt cruel to interrupt them.

So Sam didn’t.

 

 

(end of this arc. sorta)


	10. Chapter 10

The music box made a very startling and peculiar noise when it imploded.

They’d all stared at it in disbelief until Alec let out a strange laugh he’d tried hard to hold in.

As it turned out, keeping the highly mobile Baby-Bobby in one spot wasn’t easy nor possible. So to solve that issue they’d employed the up-side down laundry basket technique that had worked so well on the cat. And everything was fine until the magic box blew its springs out right before the timer was done ticking. The naked guy with the laundry basket on his head looked about a decade shy of the old man Bobby was supposed to be. If Sam squinted he might have even said it might have been even closer to twenty.

After Bobby got his clothes on he was in a real big hurry to get gone.

“Take it easy, man,” Dean said. “Nice… seein’ you.”

The hunter didn’t say a word as he quickly tossed his heavy bags (without aid) into his car. He even had something like a smile on his face when he slid into the drivers seat without one complaint about his aching joints.

“Bye, Bobby,” Alec waved. “Watch out for deer.”

The music box had worked just fine on Dean and Alec. Although Sam wasn’t exactly sure their years had been perfectly realigned either. Dean could have dropped half a decade or just gotten a good night’s sleep. It was difficult to tell.

The rewound cat still needed to be fed milk through an eyedropper though.

Sam watched Bobby’s car tear down the road and wondered when they’d see him again. He had a feeling that with the free battery recharge, Bobby might end up disappearing for a lot longer than the usual.

“Now what?” Alec sighed. “Everything’s back to the boring usual?”

“Yup,” Sam said with a grateful smile. “The boring usual.” He felt the crushing ennui and wanton despair come off his son with the force of a tidal wave. “But I heard Dean talking about going for hunt soon,” he lied. “This weekend.”

“You heard what?” Dean asked.

“Something is eating a bunch of hikers out in Yosemite?”

“Oh yeah,” Dean yawned. “Almost slipped my mind.”

“That sounds good,“ Alec looked relieved for a moment before worry quickly returned. “But what if it’s just a bear?”

“Might be,” Sam nodded. “Or it might not.”

Pushing open the screen door, he decided he didn’t feel too badly about stretching the truth this time. Mostly because there usually was something out there always chowing down on tourists in the state parks. But with that many square miles of back country it was hard to keep on top what was legitimate food chain action and what required a salt and burn.

“It would be good for you guys to get out,” Sam said. “Hit the road for while, get some fresh air and break in those new shotguns-”

“What about you?” Alec interrupted. “Don’t you need air like everybody else?”

“I’ve got a lot of work here that I need to catch up on.”

“Like what?”

“You want a list?” Sam had one if Alec actually said yes.

“Fine.“ His son studied him for a moment before going on. “I have a lot of stuff to do around here too.”

“Yeah, about that?” Dean dug a beer out of the fridge. “There’s a ton of weapon maintenance that needs doing whenever you feel the urge-”

“I’m gonna go fix the phone first. If that’s possible. And then I’m going to mix some milk formula because Sam said we couldn’t waste the box on the cat so now we own a fetus. Then I’m going to eat dinner which you’ll be making because I’m so busy. And then I‘m going to try to fix that music box and then-”

“Sorry, but the box is gone,” Dean informed him gladly. “Bobby took it with him.”

Alec frowned.

“We got plenty of other broken crap lying around,” Dean hooked an arm around Alec’s neck. “And you haven’t even seen the basement yet.”

Sam noted with interest that patting Alec soothingly on the head incited the same instant-fury as it did to his brother.

“S-So what are you trying to tell me here?” Alec shoved his uncle off of him. “We don’t fix any of this cursed stuff we find? We just get all fucked up by it and hope it doesn‘t brake and back over us a few more times? Like… like road kill?”

Sam had never really thought of it in those terms, but Alec was right on the money. The family business wasn’t in the custom of doing much refurbishing and hitting the antique road show for extra cash.

“So Yosemite, huh?” Alec sighed again.

“I love that place,” Dean said half-heartedly. “Lots of nice scenery, lots of untouched wilderness, lots of mosquitoes, lots of no toilets-”

“If we’re going hunting then you should come too, Sam,” Alec mumbled. “All you do when you’re alone is work anyway.”

Sam didn’t need any extra special powers to know what else his son was thinking. “I’m feeling a lot better now, Alec. A-And I‘m looking forward to getting caught up with the parish. Getting things back to normal around here is good for the town.”

Alec had never been very big on observing personal space, but ever since he’d arrived back to his correct age he’d been lingering a little closer than usual to his father’s side. Sam had to make room for him on the sofa when he sat down, Alec pushing under Sam’s arm and forcing himself into the space between the armrest. It reminded Sam a little bit of the cat.

“I kinda remember being a kid,” Alec said. “I guess you remember all of it, huh?”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “I do.”

Sam looked uncomfortably towards the dark television set and wished for its noisy blare for a change. The subject of remembering was something he liked to avoid as much as possible these days. Mostly because one answer would never be enough for the multitude of questions that were crowding his son‘s mind. His child had been programmed not to be satisfied with half a picture, and Alec had been given even less than that to reconcile weeks, days and hours of missing time.

“Sam?” Alec said quietly. “I had fun.”

Sam smiled before he could help himself, but it quickly faded as he felt Alec shift beside him. There was another question there. Sam could see it forming in the air between them, urgent and angry in his son’s thoughts… The rage that rippled through the ground and shattered the windows. Waking suddenly and sick on the bare mattress in the house. Sam‘s grip on Alec‘s hand so hard he couldn‘t unmake a fist until a day later. Where were we, Sam? Where did we go?

Sam jumped when he heard a small sound in the corner of the living room.

It was a weak and distressed mewl coming from a cardboard box.

“Right on schedule,” Alec’s watch alarm started beeping. “Feeding time.”

Leaving Alec to his duties, Sam headed up the stairs to the office and a backlog of work. It was a lot easier to get lost in the problems of his community for now. It was much simpler to immerse himself in worries that were larger and more important than his own.

Sam closed the door and welcomed the feeling of ease he always received at the sight of stacked paperwork.

Because the reality was that he really couldn’t remember a single thing after Ben had vanished through the gate that night. However, he was painfully aware of why both he and Alec had such conveniently matching memory lapses. And if Sam had removed such large portions of their long term memories he knew he must have had a pretty good reason for doing it.

The sharp pencil point broke against his paper as images burst bright and loud behind his eyes.

Ben waiting at the foot of the stairs  
Hands pulling the cassock down over Sam’s body  
A mouth over his smothering and distorting the Lord’s Prayer  
The beautiful flames engulfing the church  
Dean’s rifle lowering as he listened to every word Ben said

Sam very slowly put the pencil aside and folded his hands across the notebook so he could rest his forehead. Some things weren’t worth remembering.

And this time he was inclined to trust his own judgment.

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Alec POV. Alec and Dean share painful memories of their past. Kind of._

Alec found another rule to break as soon as the summer settled into a hot and steamy July.

Their secluded home was literally off the beaten path and no one ever stopped by besides the occasional meandering cow. The church services were predictable enough to avoid and the mail was delivered to a lidded box that was a long walk or a short drive down the road. So with all the privacy and scorching weather, it made the business of forgoing clothing an easy and enjoyable thing to do.

Stretching in the bright sun on the back porch, Alec gave a smile to the clear blue sky.

“These guys out here?” he gestured to the various unclothed wildlife. “These dudes are definitely on to something.”

Dean didn’t look up from the morning paper or his breakfast on the porch table. But Alec didn’t know why his uncle felt the need to rain on his naked parade. It wasn’t like Dean didn’t walk around without much more than boxer shorts most of the time anyway.

“So where’s Pastor Jim been these days?” Alec took a seat and the glass of orange juice. “I haven’t felt an icy chill in a while.”

“Dunno,” Dean flipped through the paper. “He comes and goes.”

“Comes and goes where?”

“Los Angeles. Vegas. Sometimes he likes to hit Miami Beach.”

Alec also found cereal, a pulled apart orange and something that smelled like coffee. “I know when people are bullshitting me you know,” he explained. “I picked it up on the streets.”

Dean looked skeptically from over his paper. “The streets?”

“Yup,” Alec bit into an unattended piece of watermelon. “The streets.”

“I thought you were in an apartment and gainfully employed all within 24 hours of Manticore burning down?”

“I had a car too,” Alec spit out some seeds. “But I had to lose it for uh, practical reasons. You would of liked it though? It was an old piece of crap that used a cassette player.”

Dean flipped his paper back up. “So what else did you learn on the streets?”

“Lots of stuff.”

“Make a lot of supplemental income didja?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Before all the credit card fraud we used to do a lot of that stuff,” Dean recalled fondly. “What’s the worst thing you ever did for money?”

“You first.”

“No, no, no, you go right ahead.”

“You don’t wanna tell me because its embarrassing, right?” Alec grinned. “What did you guys do? Kinda rough lookin’ to be pool boys but I bet a couple of old ladies called you over to get the rust outta the pipes?”

“Lemme guess?” Dean’s shoulders hitched in a laugh. “I bet you were in the back of one of those cheap porn rags. Posing in a nice black-n-white with a 24hr hotline.”

“I did not!”

“Oh that’s right, you were on the streets.”

“That’s right!” Alec’s triumph lasted for about one second. “ I-I mean shut up!!”

Sam’s voice suddenly rose from inside, a tired question of warning that made them both look over their shoulders in caution.

Dean lowered his voice so they could continue. “I bet you never did anything that bad.”

“I totally did,” Alec frowned. “All the time.”

“I bet you cashed your pay check and put some aside in a 41K.”

“I sold drugs?” Alec offered snidely.

“So does the rest of the planet.”

“I hustled pool and card games? Once I even rigged a church BINGO!” Alec watched in mounting distress as his uncle widely yawned. “I-I cheated on the Jam Pony Super Bowl pool. I skimmed the register every time Normal let me cover dispatch-”

“I’ll flip ya for who tells first.”

“Flip me?”

“Yeah,” Dean cleared his throat and took on an air of seriousness that Alec didn’t see very often. “If you’re up for it.”

“I’m up for anything,” Alec quickly said. “But uh, what am I up for?”

“What I have here in my pocket is a Winchester family heirloom that has been passed down generation to generation,” Dean looked him dead in the eye. “My grand father’s father gave it to him and then he gave it to my dad and then he gave it to me. You following me so far?”

“Uh, sure?“ Alec didn’t see any pockets on Dean’s underwear but he thought he was getting the basic gist. “Heirloom. Passed down father to son. Got it.”

“It’s what we use to bring peace and harmony to any and all household disputes.”

“I wasn’t aware that we were having a dispute-”

“It has provided guidance and wisdom to our family for hundreds upon hundreds of years,” Dean slid back his newspaper and there it was like a magic trick, the sun striking it and making it gleam on the table and right into Alec’s eyes. “And today it’ll be used again.”

Alec was let down when he realized what it was. “A quarter?”

“You got it,” Dean rotated the shiny coin between thumb and forefinger. “Twenty-five cents. Two dimes and a nickel. 1/4 of a dollar.”

“If it’s from your grand father’s father then why does it have the year 1984 stamped on it?”

“This very coin has seen two world wars, three police actions and several federal prisons. It knows all and it see all. Do you here by agree that its word is law and binding?”

“Uh… okay?”

“Great,” Dean flipped the coin spinning into the air. “Heads I win, Tails you lose.”

“W-Wait--”

“CALL IT.”

“Tail-Hea-Tail- HEADS!”

“Sorry, Heads I win.”

“Wait a fucking sec-”

“So,” Dean sat back and sucked on what was left of his melon rind. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done for cash on the streets?”

Alec stared at the stupid heirloom sitting on the table between them. He had no choice. It was time to confess.

“I sold parakeets.”

“What?”

“Birds! Little birds! Green ones. And some blue ones too. I kept an all blue one for myself but it flew out the damn window and I chased it out onto a ledge and almost killed myself but it got away anyway so then I-”

“You mean like the pets?”

“Are you happy now?” Alec demanded. “I got a crate of the things off the back of a truck and I sold them. I made a killing too 'cause some ten-year old popstar had one on her shoulder in a music video so everybody wanted one and-”

“I delivered newspapers.”

“Huh?”

“When I was a kid we moved around a lot. Whenever we stayed anywhere long enough I scored myself a paper route.”

Alec sat back in baffled silence.

“Fifty bucks in my back pocket.“ Dean bit on the watermelon rind and winked. “A month!”

“Did… did you have to wear one of those safety orange vests?”

His uncle’s grin faded.

“What about tips on holidays for extra candy?”

Dean sighed and picked his paper back up.

“Did you put tassels on your handlebars and a little customized license plate on the back of your sparkly banana seat--owCH!”

“That’s how I used to toss ‘em,” Dean informed him. “You’d roll it up real tight and then aim and flip. It’s all in the wrist.”

Alec rubbed at his throbbing eye and nodded in appreciation for the demonstration. He was also pretty glad his uncle had aimed for his face. A childhood of doing drive bys with heavy projectiles had given the man a powerful overhand throw and Alec wasn‘t wearing much protective gear at the moment. But his good mood suddenly returned when he recalled another one of his short-term freelance professions.

It was a very brief job and it had been just after a particularly long and heavy night of drinking at Crash.

“I once got some money from this old guy sitting in a cab waiting at a light?”

Dean blinked at him uncertainly.

“He gave me twenty dollars to flash my junk. He gave Cindy a hundred just to see her tits but you know how it is,” Alec shrugged. “It’s a woman’s world. And hey! The next day I saw the guy on the news and it turned out he was the mayor.”

“Huh.”

“Does that count as bad?” Alec asked.

“Yup,” Dean picked up his coffee mug and headed back into the house. “You win.”

Alec broke out in another smile and took the precious heirloom sitting on the table. Having no pocket at the moment, he held it in his palm and watched the light sparkle on its grimy surface. He could use all the good luck he could get.

Especially the kind that ran in the family.


	12. (What Comes Around)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Outside POV. _A talented hacker gets a surprise visit in the middle of the night. (and yeah, we're back in Seattle.)_
> 
> Next are the Minor Tremors..... coming soon. *makes zooming sounds*

He knew this day was going to be a bad one before he’d even had a chance to wake up.

_Today you will encounter negative forces that only want to do you harm._

The stars never lied.

_Avoid new relationships and all big financial decisions until the end of the month._

Rolling over in the tangle of blankets, he wondered what could have roused him from the scattered dreams of the twelve constellations shifting behind his eyes.

“Hiya,” someone said almost right in his ear. “Nice to finally meet you.”

“What the-” he was suddenly wide awake when he felt something tap him hard between the eyes. In the weak light he could see the shape of a gun that was pointed right in his face. “Shit. Holy shit.”

“Morin’” The armed man gestured that he move. “Time to get up.”

“H-How’d you get in here?” he awkwardly rolled off the mattress and landed painfully on his knees. “Who the hell are you?”

“My friends call me Dean, but you can call me that too.”

He stared for a few seconds at the offered glasses before taking them and putting them on. The room immediately came into dizzying focus. The guy wasn’t anyone he knew but he didn’t know a whole lot of people. Not in real life anyway. “Look, I don’t keep any cash here. I don’t have anything besides my-”

“Nice fish.”

He stilled as the man paused to study the enormous glowing aquarium that made up the walls of his bedroom. But before he could wonder if the man named Dean was going to harm his pets, he was pulled from his crouch and pushed past the fluttering shadows of the tanks. The faint scent of sizzling electronics cut through his daze and made his racing heart pound faster. His homemade security system had not only been bypassed but was now hanging out of the wall and sparking in the dark.

“Weird.” Dean said. “Didn’t figure you for the type.”

“What?”

“Saw another one of these in the bathroom,” Dean flicked at a calendar covered in the Chinese zodiac. “You believe in this stuff?”

“Sort of,” he said without thinking. “Sometimes it’s fun to think there’s a plan.”

Dean snorted and shook his head.

There was another very tall man in the only other room of the basement apartment. The cramped windowless space held a few millions dollars worth of computers and a few million more in equipment. And the tall man was systematically trashing it all with a rubber handled hammer.

“You make that look fun, Sammy.”

Something about the names clicked in his head even while he numbly watched another expensive monitor flicker and go black. Sammy. Dean. Dean and Sam. Sam and Dean.

“Jesus Christ… you guys are the Winchesters.”

“Could you say that again and a little louder?” Dean grinned. “My brother never believes me when I tell 'im we’re famous.”

“You’re real?" For a moment he forgot he shouldn't be delighted to discover a couple of deadly hunters in his living room. “Most of the hackers in this town think you two are cyber-constructs! Or made-up idents to throw the feds... hey, who does your patch work? It's really good stuff. Oh man, I bet it's Eyes Only. I heard a rumor that the Winchesters have met him face to face. I heard that you guys even know who he really is."

“Like ghosts in the machine,” Dean Winchester laughed a little behind him. “Maybe I really am just a hi-def hologram that really needs a drink.”

The other Winchester had momentarily stopped in his work.

"Something wrong?" Dean asked.

“Not sure,” Sam was looking at a monitor that was busy listing calculations. “What is this?”

“That’s just … it’s just a bunch of star positions,” he quickly said. “It’s nothing.”

He flinched when the hammer came down again.

Long ago (and on a lark) he’d installed a little program on his network that calculated and analyzed a consortium of various and hokey online astrologists. It had been nothing but a funny joke about how the magic knew when the media satellites were in the best trajectory to download porn. The correct stars would line up to show him when it was the most advantageous to go score some cheap sushi and avoid intestinal parasites. But after the ludicrous horoscopes had accurately forecast a car wreck, and then the death of a beloved bulldog named Wreck, he decided to pay closer attention to what the moons and planets had to say on a daily basis.

“Come on,” Dean pushed him again. “Move.”

Walking out of his apartment, he wished he had paid more attention to the dire warnings the stars had given him for today‘s date. He looked back in regret at what was left of his equipment. Every single piece of it had been reduced to smoldering junk on the floor.

“You about done, Sam?” Dean asked. “The smell down here is killin’ me.”

“Yeah, I’m done.”

The concrete stairs were cold under his bare feet, but he counted himself fortunate that he’d had fallen to sleep with a pair of jeans on.

When they got to the street level and within sight of the building entrance he was distracted by the sight of pepto-pink papers nailed to the gate. Without thinking, he shrugged his arm out of Dean’s grip to see what had been placed on his private property. Or at least he tried anyway. Working days and nights as a first class hacker in Seattle’s underground hadn’t provided him with a body that was much use in times like these. But Dean let him go long enough to examine the eviction notice stamped in triplicate by the sector cops. With a frown he saw the notice had a worrisome mention of a wrecking ball crew coming along to make sure there’d be nothing left to illegally squat in when the day was done.

Car wreck. Wreck the Dog. Wrecking ball. There had to be some cosmic connection in there somewhere.

“I-I’ve been living here for years,” he stuttered in disbelief. “They’ve never bothered me once. They’ve never even knew I existed.”

“Guess you pissed off all the right people this time,” Sam said. “Keep walking.”

“Look, there’s a bar,” Dean said. “And we’re in luck, it’s open.”

It was darker in the club than it was on the street.

“I just want you guys to know that whatever I did, I’m sorry for doing it,” he stumbled forward when his arm was twisted neatly behind his back. “I’ve never sold your info to anyone…I don’t think… and-and to be fair, whatever buyer I may have referred you to, sales between an outside third party are no longer my responsibility and-”

“Down in the back is good,” Sam looked around the deserted bar that had dance music pounding for no one at all. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Bring me beer,” Dean called out after him. “A pitcher!”

“What did I do? I’ll fix it!” he thought of the basement den that had housed his network. It hadn’t taken the Winchesters very long to destroy everything that had been worth anything. Which had comprised his entire life. He felt his eyes burn, his shoulders hunching over as he began to shake. “Whatever it is, I can fix it, and if I can’t I'll find someone who can.”

“You don’t shower much do ya?” Dean asked. “All that fancy machinery down there and you couldn’t spring for a washing machine.”

Slumped down in the booth, he knew soon he was going to be worse than homeless if he didn‘t figure out what the hell these hunters wanted.

Sam reappeared with the beer.

He watched them drink it without offering him any. He noted dully they were watching the far door with signs of impatience. They were waiting for someone. Nervously checking his watch, he wondered just how long they could feasibly keep him here. The dark club was practically empty in the early morning and a great a place as any to end his life. The location also had the added bonus that any witnesses to the act would be long gone before the cops showed up to bag another run-of-the-mill unidentified corpse.

He decided to try to save his own life the best way he knew how.

“I get it you know,” he forced his mouth into the shape of a smile. “I get all of this now.”

Dean Winchester smiled back in a way that somehow made him feel even worse.

“You want something off the city nets,” he eased his chair back to put another few inches between himself and the gun. “I got a few guys on the inside working the grid and I could get you dirt on any hunter. I can get you enough info on a guy so you can kill him without ever laying eyes on him.”

“No thanks,” Dean placed the pearl handled pistol on the table between them. “It’s sure nice of you to offer though.”

“B-But I…” he licked at his dry lips, bothered by the way Sam wasn’t joining in on the discussion. “I don’t have anything but respect for you guys, I would never sell or buy anything that would screw up a hunter. Look, just tell me what this is about and… I can settle this so everybody’s happy.”

“You make a nice living on that, huh?” Dean asked. “Buying and selling other people‘s business.”

He blinked uneasily, unsure if the comment was a statement or an accusation.

“About ten years ago,” Sam finally said. “You sold some information about a government facility called Manticore.”

“Manticore?”

“Yup,” Dean said. “You held a real big online auction.”

Ten years was a lot of auctions ago but he actually did remember the sale. Mostly because he had never made that kind of cash so fast and so easily ever since. “It was just some obscure military stuff,“ he said. “Serial numbers and that kind of crap-”

“It was the best intel to surface after the Pulse,“ Sam said. “And it was the only thing that might’ve told us anything about their troop deployment.”

“Manticore didn’t have troops,” he automatically corrected him. “That facility manufactured equipment only.”

Sitting behind computer terminals for the majority of his life had lent a certain loss to the nuisances of most human emotion, but he still had a full understanding of rage. And Sam Winchester was experiencing that emotion in abundance.

“Because of you we lost him for another decade,” Sam said. “You sold him.”

“Him?” His panic sharpened with a cold sweat. “I-I was doing people a favor putting that stuff out for public consumption. I was making all that underground shit available for whoever-”

“For any douche bag that could pay for it,” Dean said. “And guess what? You sold it to the wrong douche bag.”

For all his lack of sociability, he abruptly understood from their stance that the conversation was now over.

He thought of his demolished apartment and his livelihood smashed and smoking on the floor. He thought about how these men were responsible for having his building marked by the sector cops too, and probably every other contact he’d had in this city would now mysteriously have vanished or no longer call him a friend. And not just in Seattle either. He knew if he looked he’d find every circle and niche he’d carved for himself in the entire universe would no longer be there for his use.

“You’re not here to kill me,” he realized. “You came here to destroy me.”

“Karma’s a bitch,” Dean agreed. “But you knew that already.”

The gun was holstered and the men stood to leave him with what was left of the beer.

“Hold on,” he stopped them. “Tell me one thing before you go.“

Sam and Dean exchanged a look but they waited.

“How the hell did you ever find me?”

“We didn’t,” Dean was smiling at someone across the room. “Alec did.”

There was a young man standing uncertainly in the half light by the bar. Watching the three men greet each other, he experienced an unexpected surge of jealousy. The understanding of the connection he did not have with another living soul felt suddenly as obvious as his ghostly white skin and thick myopic glasses. The kid paused to glance back at him with a strange look that a guy like him didn't often see. It was a wary look from someone well aware of how dangerous a person could be armed with the simple and devastating weapons of knowledge.

It wasn't until after they'd left that he noticed a grungy twenty-dollar bill crumpled on the table. Enough to pay for the beer and a nice hefty tip besides.

Leaving the gun would have been a greater kindness.

Sipping slowly from the nearest cup, he sat back and tried to memorize the look that had been on young man's face. If he'd had the chance he would have told the kid not to worry about him ever affecting another man's fate again. His luck had just turned and looked like it was beginning a downward spiral.

And he was pretty sure tomorrow’s horoscope would probably agree.

 

 

(and we go onwards to the 'Minor Tremors'.... i think they might be my favorite stuff after the DeAging Thang)


End file.
